Flip Top Breadboard Ends

Alright, so next up we need to square those table tops.  The circular saw was on a job site so we had to resort to the router and a straight edge.  Not my cup of tea so I asked Nathan to do it for me.  I hate routers.  One slip and *poof*, all those hours wasted.

Then we'll need some elongated mortises in the breadboard ends.  I bought the Lee Valley Premium Hollow Chisels and they work SO much better than the stock set that came with my Steel City Mortiser.  Holy crap they cut with so little resistance it's like a new machine.  We took turns drilling mortises because it was actually fun for once.  I thought this would take me 2 hours (usually does).  Took 30 minutes to drill 20 mortises.

I should have drilled the drawbore holes before drilling the mortises, but no big deal.

What's this?!  A MISTAKE?!  How dare you!?  

I was so certain that a 3/8" diameter peg would both look right and be the right choice for strength.  Nope.  It looked so out of proportion that I immediately regretted not testing out my theory on scrap first.  We cut a plug from red oak (all we had available) and glued it in.  Sawed it flush and drilled a 1/4" hole inside it.  No one will notice unless they look right at it.  And I think the aniline dye will even out the wood tones anyway.

Took both of us to cut the wide tongues on the tabletops using the dado stack on the table saw.  One person to press down to make sure the blade cuts to the full depth, and the other to push it through.

A nice tight fight.

A smattering of tools for this step in the process.  It's important to slow down here and take your time.  You really want this joint to fit snugly without any unsightly gaps.  I went too fast.  Now I have some unsightly gaps.  I won't show them to you though.  Not when I'm this sober.

Oh!  Also, another mistake.  :D   I should have left the breadboard ends 2 inches long on both sides so that I'd have something to hammer against to disassemble a tight fitting dryfit.  :P   I think I gave myself 3/4" on one side.  Not ideal.   Learn from my mistakes!

Alright, slow and steady here, measure multiple times and make sure you've got it laid out correctly.

 Looks good.

 All cut up and ready for glue.  Notice the elongated peg holes and that the glue is only on the center tenon.  That means I learned from and successfully avoided TWO previous mistakes.  :)

I spring jointed the breadboard ends so that they would provide extra pressure on their outer reaches, so one clamp in the center should have been enough to pull the joint tight, but I must not have been perfectly straight, so a second clamp helped.  With that one drawbore peg hammered in, I shouldn't need anymore clamps at all, but I kept using them as insurance.

36 drawbore pegs and not a single blow out.  Amen!  I did have a few pegs splinter apart while pounding them in, so I just pounded a peg from the other side to push it back out.  No big deal.  I spent a lot of time rounding the tips of the pegs and filing the entrances to each hole with my rattail rasp until just a sliver of oak was providing the mechanical leverage of the drawbore.

Cut 'em flush and smooth the breadboard ends to be flush with the rest of the top.

Of COURSE I'd cause more tear out.  Goddammit.  This was a really deep tear, too, so there's no way I could smooth it without making a huge divot.  So I decided to try wood filler and hope that it would blend in when I applied the finish.  (It did.)   Newly applied wood filler on the left... and me pointing at a sanded spot of wood filler to show that you can't really see it all that much.

Tool break!

One of my hollow-chisel mortising bits broke, and a couple of them are bent.  They're the stock chisels that came with my budget-level benchtop mortiser, so I never really had much faith in them.

I bought the sharpening cones and hones, but they clog all the time, heat up too much, and dull rather quickly.  Time to upgrade!

Image source: Leevalley.com

1/4" and 3/8" Lee Valley Premium Hollow-Chisel Mortising Bits are on their way.  Eventually, I may buy the 1/2" one, but for now, these two will do most of what I need a mortiser to do.

I did a bit of product research leading into this purchase.  These chisels are well-machined, have large escapements, and tend to not get clogged.

It only occurred to me after I bought a new 3/8" mortising chisel & bit that I should size the mortises in this table to 3/8".  /facepalm

So I've updated the SketchUp model to reflect this.  My tenons and mortises are now 1/16" thinner.  Big whoop.  Only problem is the 3/8" bit is backordered to November 21.  In the meantime, I might start working on the table top glue up.

Flip Top Table Base, ready for joinery

Here are all the parts for the table base - all marked up and ready for joinery.

Leg

Guide Rail

Cleat

Apron

I like using hand tools, but there are some steps I prefer to use power tools for.

• 16 mortises go a lot faster with a hollow-chisel mortiser
• 8 stopped grooves in the legs for the corbels are efficiently done with a straight bit and a router table
• 8 peg holes end up a lot straighter with a drill press
• Tenons will be done partially by hand and then I'll cut the cheeks off with my bandsaw
• The tongues on the corbels will be made using the table saw.  It's too difficult to hold curvy objects, and the table saw will make quick work of them.  If I wanted to cut the tongues by hand, I would have kept those boards as rectangles and cut the curves after.

And just for fun, here's a video of some fun shavings in slo-mo.

Breadboard Un-ending

Everything was going so well with the breadboard ends.  The mortises were wider than the tenons, I tuned the fit perfectly, I squared up the shoulder so there were no visible gaps.  So far so good.

I clamped on the breadboard ends before taking a 1/4" drill bit to mark the current location of the center of the holes.  I used my double square to measure 1/32" or so toward the shoulder to mark where I needed to drill the holes in the tenon for the drawbores.

I drilled the holes.  I reattached the breadboard ends and peeked into the holes and everything looked good.

As I stood back and began whittling the pegs I had half a feeling that I was forgetting something, but // Wow, no mistakes so far, what a great day this is turning out to be!  Let's keep going! //

So I glue the front tenon, clamp the ends on and peg them one at a time.  Everything worked perfectly.

I cleaned up the shop, went upstairs and my wife asked me what the best thing that happened today was.  // I didn't make any mistakes! //

It wasn't until the next morning while in the shower that I realized I forgot to elongate the drawbore holes in the back two tenons.  Grrr!

"Can't you just leave it?"

// No.  When winter comes the wood will dry out and it won't be able to shrink.  Those two pegs are keeping it expanded, and it might crack right down the length of the bench lid. //

"You need to make it right then.  It will bother you until winter that you didn't do it correctly and if it breaks you'll be making your third lid for the same project."

// Yep. //

So I cut the breadboard ends off and chiseled off the glue.

It's not all bad.  I had plenty of extra 5/4 stock to make new breadboard ends and now I know just how easy it is to remove them.

I cut a kerf between the tenons using the bandsaw.  Then extended the kerf with the fret saw.  Then whacked each section off with chisel & mallet.

The glued section was removed with chisel & mallet, riving the wood and then shaving it off.

The two back tenons now have elongated holes to allow for wood movement.

New breadboard ends, comin' right up!

All better.

Corbels, Arc, Mortises & First Dry Fit

Using my Sketchup model as a reference I drew the shape of the corbels onto the prepared stock, and cut it out roughly on the bandsaw.  Then with sandpaper and a card scraper I smoothed them out to their final shape.

I forgot to take a photo of the setup for drawing the arc, but basically I bowed a piece of plywood to the correct vertical distance at the center point of the arc and traced the curve with a pencil.  Cut it out roughly on the bandsaw, and smoothed it out with sandpaper.

The mortises will be done with my benchtop mortiser, but before I drive out to my brother's shop I need to spend some time marking out where the mortises will be.

Step 1: Mark the height of the mortise using the actual tenon as a guide.

Step 2: Use a marking gauge set to the distance of the cheek of the tenon from the face of the tenoned part to mark where the face-side edge of the mortise will be.  This will ensure that the faces of the parts will be flush to one another when you assemble them.

Step 3: Hold the tenon in place and draw the opposite edge.  It's always better to use the actual part for this measurement.  Introducing a ruler at this point is an unnecessary step that can introduce errors.  If the goal is to make a square hole the exact size of the tenon, the use the tenon as your frame of reference.

Step 4: Hold the tenon in place over the mortise-part like so and indicate the depth you'll need the mortise to be.  This mark will come in handy when setting the mortiser depth stop.

Extra Step: If you screwed up one of the tenons by cutting on the wrong side of the line, like I did, and it's a little smaller than the other one, make sure you mark it clearly and keep track of it the entire time.  It's not a mistake if you hide it inside a perfectly fitting mortise.  :)

Step 5: I didn't bring my camera to my brother's shop, but drilling the mortises is pretty straight forward.  It's a square chisel with a drill bit inside of it.  It drills square holes.  For the through-mortises I drilled from both sides to prevent grain from spelching out and ruining the look.

(not bad)

(perfect, my best fitting through-mortise & tenon yet)

I used my brother's router table with a straight bit to make the double-stopped rabbets on the stiles.  I'll chisel out the corners by hand.

And here's the final dry fit.  The tenon shoulders need a little tweaking to remove the gaps and bring everything in nice and tight, and I'll probably relieve some of the tenon cheeks so the fit is a little easier so I don't run into trouble during glue-up.

Joinery Begins

Marking the Tenons

I chose to start with the top rail.  I used my precision double square to set my marking gauge to the correct distance, and scored the shoulders of the tenons, then the cheek cuts.  This particular part is going to have an arc cut into the rabbet in which the mirror and backer board will live, so there's a little extra meat below the tenon.  Ordinarily a tenon wouldn't be cut this small.  I'm not sure if it'll end up being a problem or not, but this is the method I've chosen for this project.

Sawing the Shoulders

To prevent any grain from tearing, I go over my marking gauge lines with my marking knife and square.  Then using a chisel, I cut into the "knife wall" to create a little ramp for my saw to follow.

I think I heard this tip from Christopher Schwarz.  Use the reflection of the wood in the saw plate to make sure your cutting square and plumb.  All you have to do is adjust the saw until the wood continues into its reflection perfectly.  All the more reason to keep your saw shiny!

If you're like me and you lack confidence or skill when sawing shoulders on wider boards, add some training wheels.  In this next photo I've clamped a board along my shoulder line and I'm using it to help guide the saw.

Sawing the Cheeks

I do this on the bandsaw.  My carcass saws aren't always big enough to handle this as I've been doing a lot of through-tenons.  I try to leave the line so I'll have some wood to pare away to get a good fit later.

Finishing up the Tenons

Just mark and trim away the sides of the tenon.  Use a chisel to clean it up if your saw cuts weren't perfectly plumb.

Important Point About Cut Lists

As soon as I cut the shoulders for the top rail (the first part I cut), the cut list goes out the window.  It doesn't do me any good to cut all of my parts according to the measurements on the cut list anymore because once that first cut was made, errors may have been introduced.  

I'll be basing all of my joinery from this point forward on measurements of the work itself.  In this case, after the top rail tenons were finished, I placed it alongside the uncut bottom rail and marked the exact locations of the tenon shoulders for the bottom rail.  Had I not done this, my bottom rail would have been 1/16" longer than my top rail, which might not sound like much, but in a complicated project, little errors like those can sneak up and bite you.  Cut lists are dangerous.  

My mirror might not end up measuring exactly what my cut list or Sketchup model said it should be, but as long as my joints are tight, you're never going to notice that it's 1/16" narrower.